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February 12, 2008

Swiffer inventor: Innovators must anticipate needs

Journal photo/ Mary Murphy
Johnson & Wales School of Technology 's first distinguished visiting professor Gianfranco Zaccai, inventor of the Swiffer mop, speaks about his design philosophy during his speech at Xavier Auditorium at the school today.

PROVIDENCE -- Successful business innovation isn’t about giving consumers what they need now, says Gianfranco Zaccai, but about giving them something they’ll desire in the future.

Since the early 1980s, Zaccai’s Newton, Ma.-based design company, Continuum, has been helping some pretty big companies develop products that customers hadn’t yet realized they wanted.

Among its successes has been the Reebok ``pump’’ basketball shoe, the Moen Pure Touch shower faucet and the Swiffer mop. Each innovation earned their respective companies more than $1 billion in sales.

And each was created, Zaccai said today during a lecture at Johnson & Wales, using the principle: that ``design innovation isn’t just what something looks like but how it interacts with people and moves people emotionally.’’

Read more in tomorrow's Business section.

-- Journal staff writer Tom Mooney

Posted by Jack Perry  at 3:02 PM | Permalink

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